Thursday, May 3, 2012

Arty Free Drawing Tools

Our kindergarteners are studying space. I thought it would be neat to have them create constellations on the computer and while I know they could use paint, I wanted to look for online tools instead. Kerpoof! was where I started because they have used that tool before. Unfortunately, they do not offer a star "stamp" which I wanted for this particular task. From there, I tried SumoPaint because I have also used that before. It did have a star stamp and I might end out using it but you do have to show them how to change the colors using a hard-to-find drop-down menu and printing isn't as easy as it could be. So, I googled "online drawing program for kids." One of the top results was the BillyBear4Kids Color and Paint tool. It's very easy to use and intuitive. I drew the big dipper in less than 30 seconds. But (why is there so often a but? because it's free!) when you print it out, you get the whole IE menu, links, toolbars, etc. From there, I saw this page called "The Top 5 Free Online Drawing and Doodle Activities for Kids." Admittedly, the page is a MESS...oy, talk about lack of design ironically. However, the first two tools are so cool that I forgave the look of the page. Mr Picassohead allows you to create Picasso-like portraits and JacksonPollack.org allows you to create virtual paint-drop images. Granted, neither of these are constellation worthy. I'll end out using either KidWorks Deluxe or SumoPaint for that.

2 comments:

Theo said...

Hello Alicia,
Theo here
Have you looked at TuxPaint? It's a free download with some star stamps

Alecia Berman-Dry said...

Hey Theo!!
Yes, I did look at TuxPaint and I agree it's a good tool. I simply did not have time to download it before class. Talk about last minute...Plus, we're trying to move away from downloaded programs to completely online.